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Monday, 22 October 2012

Language Show Live 2012: The Exhibitors

Last night I returned from my first time at Language Show Live. I attended on all three days and have come back laden with ideas and goodies. This is the first of what will probably be four separate posts - I think there is too much information just for one - and it is all about my favourite exhibitors.I was very fortunate to be able to attend Language Show Live at the invitation of Teachit Languages. I contributed French and Spanish resources for the launch of the site at the beginning of the year, was delighted to be asked to help the team to do a presentation of the site and help out on the stand. If you don't already know Teachit Languages, it is a resource site to which you can subscribe for a small fee. This subscription entitles you to download the resources in an editable format as well as use the interactive activity makers, such as the magnet activity maker that I demonstrated on Friday. You can also become a contributor to the site. If your resources are used by Teachit, you will receive royalty payments.

I did most of my exhibition visiting on Saturday, having scoped out many of the sites from afar on Friday. I was very pleased to see the Guatemala Tourist Board stand, and they have very kindly given me some worry dolls, a patterned ball and a map that will really enrich my Year 2 Guatemala project. I also took some photographs of their display which will be useful too. Have a look at the Visit Guatemala site.

Instituto Cervantes also had a stand, and win my prize for best bag of the show. It even has matching stickers! Instituto Cervantes offer teacher training and courses in Spanish.

I do a fair bit of work with my Key Stage 2 students on the geography and regions of Spain. We also talk about the different languages that are spoken in the country. I had an interesting chat with the staff on the Basque Government stand, where they told me some things I didn't know about the history of País Vasco and its language. I didn't know, for example, that Castellano and Euskara have borrowed from each other so much. I came away from the stand with a visual dictionary showing words in Euskara, Spanish, French and English, a resource that will interest the children at school.I travelled on the same train there and back as Nick from Routes into Languages NE and so felt it my duty to go to visit the Routes into Languages stand. They have some really good resources available including this wall planner, where each month's numbers are in a different language. I also like this poster pack, especially the food one. You can see all their resources here.And finally, anyone who was there on Sunday will know that I was there with my sister, who is a German-specialist subject leader. We made some purchases at the Idioma stand. I'm looking forward to seeing the next items to be added to their range.